Grim Sleeper

In the early 1980s, a collection of black women began to turn up dead in the alleyways and dumpsters of South Los Angeles, California. On September 23, 1985, the police announced that they believed a single individual, labeled the Southside Slayer, was responsible for the crimes. The case turned cold until May 2007, when the murder of Janecia Peters, 25, was linked by DNA analysis to 11 unsolved murders attributed to the Southside Slayer. The attacker was soon dubbed the Grim Sleeper by the local press, because he supposedly took a 14-year hiatus from his crimes, from 1988 to 2002. In August 2008, the LA Weekly conducted an extensive interview with the sole survivor of the Southside Slayer attacks and she provided several important details, describing him as a “thin, neat, polite and well-groomed African-American guy.”
The killer documented his attack with a Polaroid camera. The female victim blacked out, but was startled awake by the bright flash of the camera. On July 7, 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported that an arrest had been made in the Grim Sleeper case. The suspect is Lonnie David Franklin Jr., who is 57 years old. Originally, the police had not been able to obtain a DNA match between evidence found at the crime scenes and people in California’s DNA profile database. However, officials located similar DNA belonging to Lonnie Franklin’s son, Christopher, who was convicted of a felony weapons charge. Ultimately, the police used a piece of discarded pizza with Lonnie Franklin’s DNA to make the link.
In order to obtain the evidence, a federal detective pretended to be a waiter at a restaurant where the suspect ate. He collected dishes, silverware, glasses, and pizza crusts to obtain DNA. Saliva found on the victim’s breasts was used to obtain a DNA match linking Lonnie Franklin to the murders. Along with the DNA evidence, the police discovered a large collection of circumstantial evidence against Franklin when searching his home. On December 16, 2010, the Los Angeles Police Department released 180 photos of women found in Franklin’s home. Officials released the images after unsuccessful attempts to identify the people, who are possibly additional victims.
In all, investigators found over 1,000 photos and several hundred hours of video in Franklin’s home. The images show mainly African American women of a wide age range, from teenagers to middle-aged and older, often nude. Police believe Franklin took many of the pictures, which show both conscious and unconscious individuals, and date back up to 30 years. As the history of serial killers has taught us, the number of linked murders to a specific DNA specimen does not indicate the entire murder count. The photographs suggest that Franklin may have killed hundreds of unidentified women. Currently, Lonnie David Franklin Jr. is charged with 10 homicides and 1 attempted murder. He is being held without bail and could face the death penalty if convicted.